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Learning to Love the Cable Guy
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times and C|Net are reporting on new good will gestures from big cable companies. As service monopolies increasingly became the norm, quality of service began to decline across the board. Now, though, with a number of alternatives cropping up, cable companies are beginning to realize the need to ensure customers say with the often imposing service companies." From the article: "[As] service has improved slowly as satellite providers, upstart phone carriers and cell phone companies have provided attractive alternatives. And now that cable and phone companies are starting to sell similar bundles of phone, broadband Internet and television products--known in the industry as a triple play--they risk losing subscribers forever if they do not keep them happy."
I have a pretty spiffy DLP TV, and all I use it for is watching DVDs. I haven't bought any cable or satellite service because nobody will just sell me the channels I want, without insisting on bundling in all the bible-thumpers and home shopping network crap. It feels like getting spammed, and it just pisses me off.
I'm convinced that IPTV is the future, and that's mainly because the cable vendors SUCK.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
and the quality off cable is not great, even digital cable ( I hate having them have to reset the cable box to get the digital cables). It will take a lot for me to stay on cable when I can save a bit by switching.
A shame cable's fixed costs are so much higher than sucking a signal down from the sky, I don't see how they'll compete on price.
I think that the same can be extrapolated for Microsoft, don't you?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I'm with Charter Cable in the DFW area in Texas. Up to now they've been great, but lately my BF2 and CS:S pings to a Dallas server are getting bad. During the day they are 30ms, and at night around 275 which is getting me kicked for lag. Plus my connection speed is only about 3/4 what i'm paying for. I'm about to phone up with a complaint, but wanted to document my problems properly before I did. I just know I'll need about 1 hr free while they make me go through all the BS of checking all my settings etc..
Should I phone the service desk, or write them a letter? What result should I ask for?
"GIT R DONE!"
BR. Larry, with his can-do-and-do-it-quickly attitude is rather unique among cable guys. I remember 15 calls over much of a year to get the cable company to BURY the cable that snaked over the surface of the front lawn. The calls were always answered with "We'll do it by Friday".
Where were you when the voynix came?
Soudns almost exactly like a problem I had with Comcast when I first moved into my house. The previous owners used a dish for TV, and since the house is just out of DSL range I have to assume they used dialup for an internet connection. That's relevant because when I moved in I switched everything over to cable (cable TV, cable internet, screw the phone line). During the day, the cable connection was rock solid. Which was useless to me, since I work during the day. During the night, the cable internet connection (but not TV!) would go out as it cooled down. After 8 tech visits, three cable modems, and four months a tech finally thought to check the line at the street. Turns out there was some water damage (rust!) that caused an intermittent connection. During the warm day it would expand just enough to make a connection, but at night as it cooled down the connection would go away. Apparently it still made enough of a connection for TV to get through, but not for internet. A minute later, he had repaired the connection and left, and I haven't had problems since. This was during the spring, so I can just imagine how bad it would've gotten if they hadn't found the problem by winter.
Temperature-related issues like this can be very hard to diagnose, specifically because the techs will never come out at night. If the issue is caused by cooling temperatures at night and the techs come at 10 in the morning, of course the problem's not going to reproduce. I just had to keep getting them to send out techs until I got one that actually knew a thing or two.
In your case, the damage may have been farther up the line, especially if the entire neighborhood had the same problem. In that case, the only thing you can do is to get your neighbors to call in and complain as well. It's like a power outage. If only one person calls in, they're not going to do anything. If three people call in, they might be able to triangulate the position of the problem and think about fixing it. If hundreds of people call in, they know they have a problem and a tech will be immediately dispatched. So, when you have problems like this, call! And get your neighbors to call! If you don't, the service company isn't going to give a crap because you're not making any noise.
When I moved into this house, I made an appointment with Rogers (up here in Canada) to come and do an install at the house. As is their advertised policy they gave me a "three hour window" and said they would be there. I took the day off work. I sat here. They didn't show. Three hours after the window and still no cable installer.
I called them. Politely. They said they were coming.
An hour later I called them again, slightly irritated. They said they were coming.
A half hour later I called them and let loose the damnation of hell. In ten minutes the area supervisor was in my driveway with "presents" under his arm. A digital box for upstairs and a new (faster) cable modem for half price (and the service for the same price I was paying). For about a month I was singing their praises.
Mid last year they had a promotion where current satellite customers could trade in their equipment and get a free PVR. I've been a customer of theirs for ten years or more. I don't have a freaking PVR. I called them up and explained that when I switched "this" house it had been from satellite to cable and because of my long-standing account with them I would appreciate it they would even give me a DISCOUNT on a PVR. I was basically told to sit on it and rotate.
Last month I noticed my speed increased and my bandwidth cap increased. I thought "YAY!" Then a month later I get a letter from them in the mail telling me that if I wanted to KEEP the new speed and the new bandwidth cap I would have to pay them more money otherwise they would happily revert me to what I had before for the same price. But the KICKER is that they billed this price increase as the result of an increase in expenses. So if it costs more to operate my service, why can you still afford to give me the SAME service I had for the SAME price if I choose to go back?
Up here in Ontario it's either Rogers or Bell. And as far as I'm concerned they're both a pack of untrustworthy a*******.
TWC provided us with the proper splitters and a two-way amplifier..for free.
I have a SA 8300HD (running the Passport OS, which is supposed to work better than Scientific Atlanta's SARA OS).
In nearly three months of having the box, it's only crashed 3-4 times total -- and never when I was actually watching something (only when I was wasting my times on the stupid card games or surfing channels).
They recently updated the firmware to support the eSATA port as well.
I just wanted to make sure to avoid the trap of "Well, in MY day we knew how to _______! Unlike these damn kids today with their baggy pants and their rock and/or roll..." beliefs. As an example, a lot of people will say that there wasn't this many crap movies in theaters back in the 50's. But if that's true, where'd MST3K come from? As time goes on, people remember the awesome stuff (see, for example, the list I originally made), and the crap is forgotten as quickly as it came.
But on the other hand, I recently got my hands on Animaniacs vol. 1 on DVD and watched it all and realized it was even funnier than I remembered. It had a lot of the silly slapstick violence you had from any classic Looney Toons cartoon, but it also had jokes that were actually witty and actually required some knowledge of politics/religion/classic film/literature/etc. When I turn on Saturday morning cartoons now, all I see is overtly politically correct shows that just lack the same degree of intelligence. Not only that, but people STILL complain that cartoons are way too violent for little kids, but apparently forgotten just how violent and risque Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry were (In fact, watching some of these now, I notice they censored out jokes about suicide, blackface, etc.)
Network TV is pretty much the worst offender. All I ever see is the same old sitcoms, repackaged with fresher celebrity jokes. (We've moved on from Michael Jackson jokes to Tom Cruise, people!) News programs that have less news in them than what I can read on the back of a box of Froot Loops. Reality shows... let's not even go there. And let's not forget the commercials which insult your intelligence, treating you like a God damn child, with lies so obvious a 10 year old could see through them. As a side note, if I see a commercial for one more police/court drama show, I'm going to scream. Look, every network doesn't need 10 of their own versions of CSI.
I'm biased, I must admit, but this is essentially the reason I pretty much just leave my TV on Cartoon Network when I'm not using it to watch a DVD or play a console. It's the only station that still does come out with some pretty amazing stuff (it still has its fair share of crap, but that's to be expected). For a "kid's channel," The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy is more than a little morbid and adult, and late night action shows like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex actually make me feel like the writers aren't talking down to me to get that lowest common denominator.
Still, it makes me wonder if the young kids today are going to be having this same conversation in 20 years. "Boy, back when I was a kid, we had GOOD shows. I remember waking up 8am everyday to catch *Whatever the Hell FOX plays in the morning*, not like the trash you little brats watch on your smell-o-visions."
monopolies don't care about customers and charge whatever the hell they want, and companies that have to compete at some level will exhibit concern about what their customers want. The only variation on this theme would be a heavily-regulated monopoly (ala the old Bell System) that has enforced service standards. This is hardly news.
Too bad that the FCC doesn't understand something so basic to any economy. Somebody in law enforcement really should take a look at the Commissioners' bank records for the past few years.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Oh, yeah.
;-) Do the damned job right or hand it over to someone who will.
;-)
;-)
I had a similar experience here a few years ago when I moved in and [my] local cable company came to hook things up. Turns out that one of their local competitors had done some really shoddy wiring - using sub-spec connectors and hard bends (the coax was visibly crimped at two points where it didn't need to be) and after they pulled new cable thru it actually exceeded the promised specs [ "oh, we need to have the office slow this down some" - they never did]
If the cable installer doesn't do a bandwidth test from inside the house or apartment, at the connection on the wall, ask them to do so, in front of you. There are quite a few people I do tech support for in this area who have been screwed that way. It should be "from the pole to your wall outlet" and not "from the pole to your house/building".
I chewed on the local Qwest telephone installer for a similar problem - "we aren't responsible for the telephone lines inside your building" - despite the south wall of my apartment being where the main box is located, eight feet from the wall outlet. I ended up pulling that wire myself, took me about ten minutes. Bullshit. Service is service. Provide it, or don't. If it's a large apartment building and you have a long and problematical run, call the landlord and arrange something with him or her and their maintenance personnel (if they don't have any, move the hell out! *g*). But it's service to the wall outlet or not-gonna-pay-you.
I'm the (only) maintenance person for a mid sized apartment complex (56 apartments, 7 buildings) and while I'm willing to accomodate installers who have special problems - ie, they have to get into another apartment in order to run cabling thru or they need a hand pulling cable, or access to locked closets or even tearing up some sheetrock - fine - but I have no patience with the lazy ones who won't run new cable because it means they won't get their job orders filled today and they think the customer won't notice. Bah. Sorry, but I've heard it enough from one company out here (fortunately not from the other, and guess which one I recommend to tenants?)
They are contracted to deliver service to the wall jack. That's what they should deliver. *
Sorry for getting a bit feisty, just had to bitch a bit. I have lots of that stored up. Years worth, to be honest
But I'll say that Midcontinent Communication's installers are fantastic for the most part, and PrairieWave's ain't, for those of you living in this part of the "western midwest". Kudos to those who are doing their jobs. Speaking as a maintenance grunt, it's damned nice to deal with you when you want to get the job done right, and not waste your time nor mine.
SB
*Only answer I have for if they don't involves large clubs and midnight visits
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
SARA is better than Passport. But truth be known, they're both buggy as hell. Now that Cisco owns Scientific Atlanta, let's hope the code will be cleaned up in future revisions.
Personally, I'd rather them scrap it and start all over for an OS based on a Linux or Tron kernal.
Life is not for the lazy.
Content, on the other hand, seems to be falling in all mediums.
Good. The faster "content" goes away, the faster something really good can take its place. The industry definition of content is "noise that keeps the intervals between commercials from being test patterns." Creative talent is not and will never be a commodity.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I have seen two implimentations of "ala-carte" programming in both cases less than 1/3rd of the channels included in the standard" digital tier ended up costing quite a bit more than just taking them all and not watching the channels you dont like.
I'd rather pay more for things that I want and enjoy than continue to support mediocrity. Hell, that might be the only way to get rid of Fox News.
I'd also like for the cable channels to see what would happen to their demographics if they moved to a more free-market system. Would they improve their programming to appeal to a broader audience? Or would they go pandering ("Hey everybody! More T&A on CNN!")?
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"